Quickie

A morning of showers dictated the agenda this morning, a quick tour of Pilling shore before domestic arrangements called a halt.

At Lane Ends the Willow Warblers and Blackcaps seem to have arrived in decent numbers, unlike some others yet to put in an appearance; no Reed or Sedge Warblers yet. This morning I counted 3 Willow Warblers singing plus 2 Blackcaps, and managed to get a shot of a Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla in between it flitting fast and low through the bushes while singing its head off. One of the Blackcaps wasn’t as good a songster as the one pictured here, and at first I thought I was listening to a Garden Warbler Sylvia borin until I caught glimpses of that black helmet. Eventually the second one tuned up a bit too, but I don’t mind saying that at the start of each spring, separating the two Sylvias from their songs alone can be difficult. 

Blackcap

Garden Warbler

For anyone still unsure, there’s a comparison below, useful at the start of the season until ears get reacquainted with the differences. 

 

In the trees the 2 Jays seem to come and go according to no particular schedule but which is probably dictated by the amount of food put out for the assorted duck population. Still a singing Reed Bunting, 2 Little Grebe, 2 Tufted Duck, 1 Little Egret, 2 Grey Heron and the patrolling Kestrel. At Fluke Hall there was a steady passage of Swallows heading into the easterly breeze, 20 + in just 15 minutes. Along the hedgerow here 3 Willow Warblers “hooeeted” as if they had just arrived, with 2 more singing in the woodland together 2 more Blackcaps and the resident Chaffinches. Across the far side of the wood I watched a male Sparrowhawk glide through the trees, in much the same spot as last year’s pair. 

Chaffinch

Stay tuned for the next post from a place quite unlike Pilling.

A Hundred Plus

Before this morning the last time Will and I managed a ringing session on Rawcliffe Moss was 4th September, the in-between time spent waiting for Irene and Katia to clear our shores. Today dawned cold but fine and bright and without the nagging, sometimes vicious wind of the previous ten days, so we hoped for lots of migrant birds previously held up by the bad weather.

The cold air gave us a fairly slow start which gathered momentum so quickly and successfully that by the end of the 6 hour session we had exceeded the magic one hundred by amassing a total of 122 birds of 12 species, 113 new and 9 recaptures, with the highpoint of the morning being the large number of two species in particular on the move south, Meadow Pipit and Chaffinch. New birds: 52 Meadow Pipit, 45 Chaffinch, 7 Goldfinch, and singles of Garden Warbler, Chiffchaff, Jay, Great-spotted Woodpecker, Sparrowhawk, Robin, Blue Tit, Great Tit and Coal Tit.

Our recaptures were 8 recently ringed Goldfinch, all returnees to the Niger feeders, and a Chiffchaff which has hung around the site whilst completing its adult moult.

Meadow Pipit - juvenile
Meadow Pipit- adult
Garden Warbler
Goldfinch

Whilst we caught both Chaffinches and Meadow Pipits steadily, the peak of catching Chaffinches proved to be between 9am and 10am. There was a noticeable spike in Meadow Pipits numbers between 10am and 11am, in both visual migration and in the numbers we caught which might suggest that the Meadow Pipits had travelled a greater distance or from a wider area than the Chaffinches. Here on the moss we find migrating Meadow Pipits to be more detectable than Chaffinches, and taking this into account the estimate of both species on the move south here this morning is approximately 400 Meadow Pipit and 500 Chaffinch. We noted other finches on the move this morning, mainly 40+ Siskin and 4 + Lesser Redpoll, with small numbers of locally feeding Linnet c30 and Goldfinch c100.

In their different ways a Jay, a Great-spotted Woodpecker or a Sparrowhawk are all capable of drawing a ringer’s blood.

Great-spotted Woodpecker
Great-spotted Woodpecker
Sparrowhawk – juvenile male
Sparrowhawk – juvenile male
Jay

Processing 120 plus birds limited our pure birding somewhat, but we also noted 6+ Reed Bunting, 1 Tree Pipit, 3 Snipe, 1 Yellow Wagtail, 2 Grey Wagtail, 2 Jay, 2 Sparrowhawk, 4 Buzzard and the return of 15 Pink-footed Goose.

Autumn Assortment

It’s almost September so at Out Rawcliffe today our recent strategy changed from that of catching summer warblers to more of an autumn targeted one, aiming firstly for a catch of finches, then secondly the notion that any warblers that come along are a bonus.

We started the morning on a double disaster when firstly Will discovered that he forgot to put coffee in his flask of hot water and milk! Worse was to come when putting nets up in the dawn light we disturbed a Roe Deer that promptly panicked in the direction of where we had just set Will’s almost new 60 foot net. When we checked the net the deer had indeed crashed right through, snapped the bottom strand and left netting all over the vegetation. Such a net costs almost £100 – an expensive morning out. We put the net incident behind us as Will persevered with his warm, milky water refreshment for the rest of the morning, I sipped my flawless coffee whilst steady catching kept us both occupied.

We totted up a good selection of 12 species with 36 new birds and a single recapture. Of the 36 new birds 18 were finches, 14 warblers and 4 miscellaneous. New birds: 9 Chaffinch, 8 Linnet, 1 Goldfinch, 5 Blackcap, 4 Whitethroat, 2 Willow Warbler, 2 Chiffchaff, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Robin, 1 Reed Bunting, 1 Great Tit and 1 Tree Pipit, the latter one our fourth of the autumn here. The single recapture was a still moulting adult Whitethroat.

Robin
Willow Warbler
Tree Pipit
Linnet
Garden Warbler

One of the Chiffchaffs captured was a very smart, bright juvenile, very smart in fact because as I held the bird for a photograph it snapped at and caught a passing fly.

Chiffchaff
Chiffchaff

The bird watching was subdued this morning and the overall catch better than our simply birding observations might suggest, with 1 Grey Wagtail, 2 Tree Pipit and c40 Chaffinch overhead. Although welcome autumn additions, today’s Linnet and Goldfinch captures represent a small proportion of the two species on site with a sometimes mixed flock of 300+ birds. Otherwise we saw 80/100 Swallow, 2 House Martin, 2 Raven heading inland again, 1 Great=spotted Woodpecker, 1 Skylark, 1 Kestrel and 30+ Lapwing keeping company with a single Golden Plover.

Well Sorted

Firstly my apologies to readers for the messy appearance of the blog for the last two days when the right hand column ended up below all the posts. This was caused by the simplest of problems, a stray piece of HTML overlooked in my last post Slightly Cuckoo. In the end the post title proved more accurate than envisaged. In due course and to compensate for this dreadful mistake, more new Cuckoo pictures will follow soon on Another Bird Blog.

I fixed the Blogger glitch this morning at 5am, just before I made tracks for Out Rawcliffe and a spot of ringing. On such a fine, wind free morning I suppose Will and I hoped for a big catch this morning, the first one for some time where we could use a full spread of nets. The overnight clear skies may have moved birds on ahead of us, our excuse for not catching enormous numbers. However we achieved a great variety of birds with yet more warblers plus witnessed clear signs of autumnal visible migration with our in-between net rounds birding.

We totalled 32 birds, 29 new, 2 recaptures and 1 “control”, an adult female Chaffinch ringed elsewhere – ring number R988282 other ringer bloggers out there? New birds: 9 Willow Warbler, 6 Chaffinch, 3 Blackcap, 3 Whitethroat, 2 Tree Pipit, 2 Lesser Whitethroat, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Robin, 1 Treecreeper and 1 Blackbird.

Tree Pipit
Tree Pipit
Treecreeper
Lesser Whitethroat
Blackcap
Garden Warbler

Our recaptures: 1 Willow Warbler and 1 Whitethroat. As we are now well into the month of August the Whitethroats moving through the site are almost exclusively juveniles, i.e. 63 of 68 Whitethroat captures in the last 30 days have been young birds of the year. That is because most of the adults migrate earlier than the juveniles, young of the year which in August can be correctly aged but not sexed. Adult Whitethroats can be difficult to accurately sex at most times, in fact it is probably impossible in the field in August when they undergo moult. We thought today’s moulting adult may have been a male, until at home a check on IPMR records from May and June showed it to be a breeding female.

Likewise, autumn Willow Warblers are difficult to age and it is only in the hand that anyone can say with certainty that an individual is an adult or a juvenile.

Whitethroat moult
Whitethroat adult
Willow Warbler

More signs of autumn appeared this morning with visible Chaffinch movement – circa 30 birds passing overhead, contact calling as they headed south, then of course the capture of another ringer’s Chaffinch. Tree Pipits also fell into the “vis mig” category with 2 caught and a minimum of 4 birds overhead. The morning also saw a marked passage of Alba wagtails with upwards of 18 individuals heading west, the appearance of more Sylvia warblers and the early morning sound of Robin sub-song, a species that proved to be first in the nets.

Other birds this morning: 80+ Swallow, 4 Corn Bunting, 4 Grey Partridge, 1 Kestrel, 2 Buzzard and 50+Goldfinch. I almost forgot – the female Sparrowhawk that flapped from the net before we could reach it. Oh well there’s always another day.

On the non-birding front, Will who is a bit of a wildlife sleuth found the footprints of a Stoat where we often see one running alongside our plot, but we didn’t see the animal today, just Brown Hares and Roe Deer.

Stoat tracks

The White Morning

Monday night’s forecast wasn’t too promising. When I woke up and looked out the weather didn’t seem so bad, so I made a journey to Out Rawcliffe where I could have a wander about and maybe find a sheltered spot for a few nets. First off I saw the young Tawny Owl in the exact same spot of a couple of weeks ago: so was the side branch, partly obscuring the bird.

Tawny Owl

The stiff north-west breeze left a couple of spots unaffected on the east side of the plantation, so within 20 minutes of my arrival the nets were up and were operational. I stayed busy the next three hours with a good catch of mainly warblers, many of them newly arrived Whitethroats, so I reckon I hit upon the right morning. The overall catch was 29 new birds but no recaptures: 17 Whitethroat - all juveniles, 5 Willow Warbler, 2 Reed Warbler, 2 Swallow, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Blackbird and 1 Tawny Owl.

If rough calculations are correct there are now exactly 100 new Whitethroat captures on site this year with an overall total of 128 if all the recaptures are added.

Whitethroat
Whitethroat
17 “Whites”

The two Swallows caught were an adult and a juvenile.

Swallow - adult
Swallow - juvenile

Migrating Reed Warblers turn up in young woodland growth occasionally.

Reed Warbler

The second Garden Warbler here in a week.

Garden Warbler

The second juvenile Tawny Owl of the day turned up, but this time in the bottom panel of a mist net, just a foot or two from where it flapped out of the net on two previous occasions. As I processed the downy owl, Rachel came walking by and offered to take a photograph of the still sleepy, docile creature. Thanks Rachel.

Tawny Owl
Tawny Owl

Other birds this morning: 2 Jay, 18 Tree Sparrow, 4 Greenfinch, 3 Skylark and approximately 80 Swallows. Swallow numbers seem definitely lower following the clear out of last week, and they were noticeably absent from the nearby fields and farms on such a bright, sunny morning.

Late Lasagne

It was Saturday evening but even Sue’s Legendary Lasagne washed down by a glass or two of grapey Shiraz would have to wait a while; Will and I had hastily arranged a spot of ringing, a session which by 930pm proved just as fruitful as Aussie’s best, with a handy total of birds ringed plus two or three scarcities seen.

Before we even put up nets the evening started on a real high with sight of a Cuckoo, a species now as rare as hen’s teeth here in Lancashire, and a bird which has become something of a major target for year listers. So infrequent are Cuckoos that after both mine and Will’s many, many hours of local birding and ringing this year the single juvenile Cuckoo represented our first and possibly our last local sighting of the year.

Cuckoo

After feeding close by for a short while the Cuckoo flew off towards the strip of woodland where we originally saw it. We then turned our attention to ringing and the hoped for Goldfinches from the nearby roost. In all we caught 24 birds, 21 new and 3 recaptures which included several more juvenile Goldfinch and more Sylvia warblers. New captures; 10 Goldfinch, 4 Whitethroat, 3 Willow Warbler and 1 each of Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Chaffinch and Great Tit. Recaptures: singles of Willow Warbler, Goldfinch and Whitethroat.

Blackcap - Sylvia atricapilla
Garden Warbler - Sylvia borin
Whitethroat - Sylvia communis
Willow Warbler - juvenile
Chaffinch

The numbers of Goldfinch going to roost had fallen slightly, with perhaps 80/90 birds overall, so our catch of 10 new ones proved worthwhile. Once again our captures were all juvenile birds, leading us to speculate once more that this is indeed a roost of juveniles only.

Goldfinch - juvenile

As we watched between net rounds we clocked up 2 more scarce species with a single Marsh Harrier heading off to roost in a distant barley field, and then brief glimpses of 3 Grey Partridge, an event which set off a discussion on the rarity value of the two species. We came to the sad conclusion that whilst Marsh Harrier is now fairly common following its population expansion of the past twenty years it still has adequate prestige to set the pagers buzzing; conversely the once common, but now threatened with local extinction Grey Partridge can probably never achieve such heights of birding fame.

Grey Partridge

Swallows have proved very interesting this last week. We counted approximately 700/900 birds during the course of the evening as they flew in a south easterly direction towards a local roost, probably in the extensive and now quickly growing maize fields. The number was way down on our count of several thousand Swallows a few nights ago, a period during which the massive Fleetwood roost also dispersed. So it appears that huge numbers of Swallows have imperceptibly headed south in the last week or so: equally there are many more to come from the north and/or east and Swallow roosts are dynamic, ever changing in composition, with the result that roost numbers will almost certainly build up again in the coming weeks.

Swallow

Other birds seen in our few hours: 25 Linnet, 1 Corn Bunting, 1 Tawny Owl, 2 Buzzard, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 30 Tree Sparrow and 40 House Sparrow.

The lasagne? Yes it lived up to its mythical status, but this ringing and birding lark certainly works up a thirst and that bottle of plonk proved a life-saver.

Morning Edition

Our Rawcliffe Moss morning started just perfect for a ringing session, no wind, 100% cloud and no rain. All that Will and I needed to complete the picture was a decent number of birds of a good variety; by the time we packed in at 11am after a six hour stint we had met or even exceeded our target, with one or two favourite species like Reed Bunting, Sedge Warbler and Garden Warbler included in the overall catch.

In all we caught 52 birds of 9 species with a good selection of warblers and finches, 44 new birds and 8 recaptures. New birds: 12 Whitethroat, 12 Goldfinch, 8 Willow Warbler, 3 Reed Bunting, 2 Blackcap, 2 Blackbird, 2 Sedge Warbler, 2 Great Tit and 1 Garden Warbler. Recaptures: 3 Sedge Warbler, 2 Willow Warbler, 2 Whitethroat and 1 Great Tit.

After a few weeks of waiting for fresh juveniles to appear we made up ground today with 34 of the 52 captures being birds of the year. However, as in recent weeks juvenile Willow Warblers remain scarce, with upon closer examination just three of our ten today proving to be juveniles, and the remaining seven adults each in a stage of their full feather renewal.

Blackcap - juvenile
Reed Bunting - juvenile
Reed Bunting - juvenile
Garden Warbler - juvenile
Sedge Warbler - juvenile

It’s still early July so migration for small passerines is somewhat invisible, more post breeding dispersal than true “vis mig”, but we added to recent sightings of moving Siskins with a party of 17 birds flying high and south about mid-morning.

Otherwise our sightings were: 100+ Swallow feeding over nearby fields, 10+ House Martin, 2 Swift, 30+ Lapwing, 3 Oystercatcher, 2 Corn Bunting, 2 Skylark, 4 Stock Dove and 2+ Buzzard.

Stock Dove